


Dye My Eyes And Call Me Pretty

by ohfrecklefreckle



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Halloween, M/M, Patrick and Halloween, Peterick, THIS FIC THOUGH, Trick or Pete 2019, cross dressing, is a trope, these boys are just too much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 02:28:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21245993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohfrecklefreckle/pseuds/ohfrecklefreckle
Summary: ~The tour is over bar the flights home and there's a wrap party at the hotel. It's low key and, thankfully, not fancy dress. Life on the road lends itself less to those kinds of elaborate antics and he sets himself another mental reminder to always be on tour on Halloween.~Old school disclaimer: M/M RPF - you have been warned! If you don't like RPF then please don't read it. Themes of cross dressing. Explicit smut with bad language. Definitely has elements of previous angst/UST but please enjoy anyway!





	Dye My Eyes And Call Me Pretty

**Author's Note:**

> Yet more fic inspired by late night, gloves off conversations and Pete's beautiful long hair *hearteyes emoji*
> 
> There are some links to videos in the footnotes that will make a bit more sense of a few things but could be spoilers so they're at the end instead. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Patrick doesn't like Halloween and never has. His mother says that once kids are grown up it's just another excuse to get drunk and act up and he's inclined to agree with her. What she doesn't know is that he quite likes the getting drunk part but doesn't need a special occasion and some glow in the dark plastic fangs to start making inroads into a bottle of hard liquor. Sure, he's been accused of the acting up bit too but would dispute that. It's all a matter of interpretation after all.

It's October 31st 2006 and Patrick is in L.A. The band has a gig at the weekend but somehow they've managed to get a few days off and Pete has insisted that they throw a party for Halloween at the apartment. It's announced as fancy dress and the theme is, quite unoriginally for a creative mind like Pete, music. Patrick is convinced he can turn up as himself, being a famous musician as he is, until Pete decides to tell him that he'll throw his favourite hat into a fire if he even dares to try it. He decides that as Pete is usually a man of his word when it comes to pranks it's best not to risk it. Instead he decides that Elvis Costello is his way to go. Sharp fitting shirt, narrow tie, single breasted jacket, knife edge creases on his trousers, winkle pickers crushing his toes and a chestnut brown pork pie hat that can only described as (This Year's) model's own. Expensive but worth it and something he can wear again. His mother always said he was too sensible for his own good and sadly, as the night begins badly, he feels that she definitely had a point.

His costume is a decision Patrick regrets as soon as everybody he meets says 'Who?' immediately after he tells them who he's come as. That's then followed up by the incredulous and exasperated look he's treated them all to by way of a fitting response. For a room full of musos and their better half hangers-on there's barely anybody who has the first clue who his hero is let alone any knowledge of the great man's even greater hits. Patrick reels a few off to make his point to a few. He soon stops. His point is pointless. Patrick surrenders to the fact that he could have come as one of the Beach Boys in any random $2 thrift store Hawaiian shirt, humming I Get Around and using any made up name he might choose to amuse himself with because literally nobody there would know the difference. (Randy Loveshovel is one in his memory bank that's just crying out to be unleashed on the world. Maybe next time.)

He spends most of the early part of his night in the kitchen of the party apartment Pete has managed to arrange via a friend of a friend of his current girlfriend. Patrick isn't keen on the venue or the girlfriend if he's being honest but he's slowly learning to live with both in varying degrees. It's easiest if he busies himself tidying up solo cups with all manner of detritus in and the barely used silver foiled paper plates (nobody really eats, much to Patrick's dismay and that of his rumbling stomach. It is L.A. after all.) to avoid talking to a lot of people he doesn't like and any of the women Pete has invited along, clearly in the hope that they might be interested in dragging a recently single frontman out of the drink and dorito doldrums he's so seamlessly slipped into. What Pete never thought to do was ask said frontman if he was over being betrayed enough to want to risk being betrayed again. Or even pretending to be interested enough to make infidelity an option for either party. Unlike Pete, Patrick knows he has never been a one night stand kinda guy and has no intention of becoming that at any point in the near or distant future.

It's almost ten and Pete is late to his own party. Nobody in the room is surprised in the slightest. Music is pumping out of every speaker (and there are a lot of them. Far more than there needs to be in Patrick's acoustically nerdy opinion.) and it's the sort of chart mash-up trash that only the stereotypically hip, ripped vested, tanned and tragic house party DJ could concoct into a playlist. Suddenly the music dies, all the lights dip and, motivated by the moans of the party goers, Patrick - ever the responsible adult of the piece - ventures out into the lounge area to investigate. He heads towards the door that leads into the hallway, certain that that's where any fuse board would be, but as he nears it, it bursts open. The opening bars of Dirrty burst to life and Pete appears, leaning against the door frame. He can't help but let his jaw drop open at the sight of what Pete is wearing or, more accurately _isn't_ wearing. He retreats across the room and gets out of the impending spotlight that is so rightly reserved for every bit of the show that Pete is.

The top is a small red lace vest, the hem cut away to leave it frayed and every bit as rough around the edges as the look as a whole seems intended to be. Patrick can't help it but his eyes stray to where a pair of impressive breasts should most likely be but there's just a tight fitting bra that has somehow shoved what Pete hasn't got into a mock cleavage spilling (well, _puddling_) over the brim of the lace trimmed cups. Something about the way it wraps around Pete's chest and shows off his ink is far more intriguing than the fact that he's clad in fancy lace gear in the first place. Pete's chest looks smooth from where Patrick is standing and he can't help but wonder if the lace is soft against Pete's shaven skin. The momentary thought sends a shudder down his spine and he's not sure if it's revulsion, curiosity or... no, he won't let it be anything else. It straight up just _can't_ be anything else.

The pleated black skirt Pete's wearing (or maybe is wearing Pete) is tiny; barely enough to cover whatever minimal modesty he ever had left. It sits on his bottom hip line, dipped deep below his bartskull, the usual trail of coarse dark hair clearly removed and the skin shiny and smooth. A thick studded belt sits around the waistband of the skirt and Patrick can't quite tell in the half light but he's sure that the underwear that's becoming visible in flashes isn't leaving much to the imagination front or back.

Wide weave black fishnet tights cling to Pete's legs and he can't believe how good the slender legs look even if Pete has finished his outfit off with a pair of New Rock boots. He's like Tank Girl come to life and that alone would be enough to get Patrick fired up on most days. But this is Pete. Pete Wentz. Not Tank Girl or any other girl for that matter. It's fucking _Pete_.

The entire room is cheering and clapping and Pete struts into it, his red highlighted hair flat ironed to within an inch of it's life and pulled deep across one eye. Patrick can see that the usual eyeliner has been thickened up and that a deep, vampy red colour is smeared across Pete's plump lips. The less said about the trashy long blonde wig that has already caught on the door jamb, tugged off Pete's head and forlornly descended to the floor, the better. The thick swathe of jet black hair interrupted by pops of Manic Panic High Voltage red is more in tune with the outfit anyway. If there's something constant about Pete it's his sense of being endearingly and enduringly trashy and Patrick is only too aware that if anybody knows that for sure, it's him.

The comedy bouncing and bumping to the song that's been played well past its intro is amusing everybody in the room apart from Patrick. He sensibly decides that he doesn't care for the impression much at all but his body is playing traitor. As Pete gets closer to his side of the room panic sets in. He can't move from where he's tried to hide (now conspicuously perched on the arm of a couch) thanks to the crowd that rapidly formed behind him but his smart slim cut puppy tooth Costello-tribute dress slacks are growing tighter around him by the second and he's sure that someone will notice soon.

Patrick takes a deep breath and concentrates on looking nonplussed by the show Pete is putting on, still aware that it won't be long before Pete gets to him as he works his way around the baying and braying guests. He breathes slowly and waits, the rolling of Pete's hips almost hypnotic but he's not watching. He's not. It's not about watching. Not watching like that anyway, there's no intentional intent. He just needs to be able to retell the tale with every last detail of how Pete dipped and swayed needing to be memorised to do the story justice when he recounts it. That's all it is.

He's (almost) convinced that's all it is until his brain tells him that he wants to touch the skin above the waistband, to stroke it with his fingertips and kiss it softly. The surging panic is growing at the same rate his trousers are tightening. He wants to push the tiny skirt right up or right down and let his hands and mouth explore what's underneath. The problem is that his brain is still trying to tell him that it would be soft and feminine things he would find just like he did when he would get the urge to take Anna's skirt off but he knows better. What's under there is likely to be hard and intimidating but still clad in soft satin or lace and be oh so very touchable.

_Shit_, he thinks. Not touchable. Pete is not touchable. He never has been and never will be, not to Patrick. Oh fuck, _no_.

The conflict is far more intoxicating than the vodka punch he's been speed drinking since he arrived. Pete is so pretty with the coloured stripes in his hair and his darkened eyes inviting everybody in the room to take him back to the hotel and fuck him later whether he means it or not. A quick visual survey around the room reveals all eyes are on Pete and, inkeeping with that, he returns his own to the ongoing show but he's not really seeing any more. Alarm bells are ringing like a four minute warning but he doesn't have that long. Even if he did then he suspects the minutes of life he has left would be taken up with something and someone scantily clad and a bang absolutely worth going out on.

He's so busy thinking about Pete's shameless antics (and definitely not his own raging hard on or immoral dilemmas) that he doesn't realise soon enough that Pete is in front of him. A hand appears on each of his shoulders and Pete straddles one of his thighs, shuffling up and pressing what is obviously a straining hard on against the shape of Patrick's hip. Pete starts to ride his thigh, leaning in close and whispering “Am I still your guilty pleasure?” for Patrick's ears only before groaning loudly for the entertainment of the crowd. He can smell the faint aroma of Jack Daniels as Pete moves away again. The way Pete hops off his leg and then dips down to the floor ass first, legs spread just like in the video, is truly shameless. Patrick completely _doesn't_ notice how Pete's hands are on the insides of his own thighs, nudging the skirt a little higher to make it clear what's going on beneath to a limited audience of one. Pete turns as he gets back up and parks his ass on the point of Patrick's knee, arching his spine as he leans back, using Patrick's other thigh to grip into for balance, and rubs his cheek against Patrick's. There's hollering and whooping going on all around them but Patrick can't hear it. All he feels is static. All he hears is crashing silence. His fingers twitch and he barely resists the urge to lace them into the thick hair and kiss the last trace of life out of Pete Wentz.

What he actually does is frantically fish into his pocket – not that there's much room left to slip his hand in – and fishes out the few folded notes he rammed in it earlier. He fans them out and skims them over Pete's face, down over his faux feminine décolletage and then slips them under the belt. Patrick figures that if it looks like he's part of the show he'll get away with it, whatever 'it' is. How he's managing to keep his cool is anybody's guess but Patrick manages it right up until the time when Pete gets off him, takes the notes out, makes as if to count them and shoves them down his bra. It's then that he leans in and plants a kiss squarely on Patrick's mouth. It's not a peck but there's no tongues. It's not an innocent 'kiss your Gramma goodbye' but it's not soul stealing either. In that second he's sure that he's never, ever been harder or closer to coming just on the back of a kiss that from anybody else would have been entirely innocent.

It's more innocent than their other kiss. _The_ kiss. Just the one. That's all it had been and they had spoken about it afterwards (for afterwards read also: sober) and agreed that it was just a drunken not-to-be-repeated fumble. That's all it was. Two years ago but almost three years of knowing each other in. There had been flirting and stupidness before. That came as standard when you knew Pete, everybody knew that. Joe had fallen victim by virtue of knowing Pete first. So many ass grabs that rumour had it that his right butt cheek was the same shape as Pete's right palm. Andy had managed to get off easily (no pun intended) with a infrequent peck on the cheek here and there, relying on Mikey and Hey Chris to deflect most of that unwanted sexual energy away from him.

Patrick, well, Patrick was different and he knew that. Enough people told him that he wasn't the same as everybody else and Pete had found him to be no exception to that rule. The kiss wasn't a mistake or at least he didn't think it was. It had never been referred to as such. If anything it had seemed entirely premeditated on Pete's part. That's what he'd tell a judge with his hand on his heart.

-

_A night out to a gig on their own. Too many beers, a drunken ramble home along abandoned city sidewalks, block after block of swinging around stop signs and lampposts. Getting out of the bright lights and into the suburbs, running through the streets, sometimes with innocently intertwined fingers until the edge of darkness claimed the city's amber glow. Finding a way to a park (the kind that Pete always seemed to know about) and playing on the swingset. Fingers that still kept brushing and touching by faux-accident. Laughs lasting a moment or two too long. Looks that burned with the passion of the glutton staring into an all you can eat buffet through a steamed up window. Something less sophisticated than a frisson - more like a back of the throat note finding its natural resonance; dangerous but somehow so right. Glass shattering, resolve splintering, eye opening. _

_Cut to them hiding under a slide to get out of the rain, concealed by the dark yet garishly primary colour painted wooden panels that cast shadows on their shape and took them further from view, not that there was anybody else for miles around. Laid together in a metal tube not made to accommodate two developed bodies but containing two bodies that were somehow developing in strange ways and determined to make it a perfect fit. Slim thighs pressed too close together. Sharing breath and intoxicated by more than the petrichor that broke the summer's sting. Wordless agreements reached, entreaties by eyelash only._

_He had always imagined that Pete's lips had no idea what tentative meant having seen them doing their busywork with plenty of willing victims but Patrick really was different. When Pete made his move it was with hesitation. Short fingers with rough tips had traced the shape of his mouth, catching on the soft swell of his bottom lip and extracting a sigh (from one of them or both of them, he really wasn't sure which). For that split second the world stilled on its axis and time stopped. He hadn't lived enough life then to know that a lot of things are easier with closed eyes. Patrick watched as Pete licked his lips to wet them and felt the undulation of a prominent Adam's apple displace the limited air between them as the hard swallow came straight after. Pete's eyes were already closed but somehow he still knew how to find Patrick's mouth and kiss his way into it, the long tongue tickling the roof of his mouth as he smiled into his first kiss with Pete. _

_Whether it was right or wrong he slipped his fingers under the hem of the well worn but mercifully recently washed Slayer t-shirt and stroked whatever skin he found first, slowly working his hand around as his confidence grew until it was pressed into the damp skin at the base of Pete's spine. That alone turned him on more that it should have. Knowing Pete was nervous made him feel less conscious of his own inexperience. Pete was the first boy he had (just) kissed, or more accurately, the first boy that had kissed him. (He once went to whisper something to Joe who happened to turn his head at precisely the wrong time and subsequently asked Patrick never to eat a hundred weight of garlic doughballs and drink the butter before trying to whisper something to him ever again). _

_The kiss probably didn't last as long as Patrick felt it did but it was soon followed by another. And another. And one more. Then his eyes closed and there was more hands and more moving and awkward shuffling and pressing against one another until a convenient angle was found. The rain fell harder and faster (no two words more appropriate for the thoughts seeping into Patrick's blood from his brain) and started to hammer on the metal slide above them. It didn't have the chance to echo and the persistent snare drum roll of the raindrops masked the way his breathing grew more rapid and the sound of the chain on his belt banging against the tube as he rocked against Pete and Pete pushed back against him. Patrick couldn't tell if it was thunder or his heartbeat pounding in his ears but Pete was all he cared about and all he wanted. More Pete, more anything, more everything good and right. Anything he needed to worry about could be handled in the morning, all he wanted was more. More, more, more. _

_With a sharp shuffle from Pete their position changed slightly but the neverending kiss stayed unbroken. Patrick found himself on his back and not his side with Pete between thighs which had instinctively spread under the minimal weight above. A forearm landed either side of his shoulders, braced against the upcurve of the tube. As he pushed up, Pete pushed back. 4 layers of fabric (or maybe 3 if Pete had gone commando again) was all that separated them and he knew it, oh how he knew it, and Patrick realised that he resented every single stitched thread of it. It felt so good, so right to be there underneath Pete in the dark. The frantic dry humping slowed as he felt Pete sliding on the metal so he thought fast to find a way, to find a solution. He grabbed at the back pockets of Pete's jeans but they were so tight that he couldn't get his full hand inside. He hooked his thumbs into the pockets and curled his fingers into the firm flesh filling out the snug fitting denim. Patrick pulled Pete closer, determined not to let go until they had both ridden out what was happening between them below the waist. _

_It was a pure moment when he finally came, his head spinning with the thrill of the unrelenting sound of the rain and his own desperate legato breathe-sigh-moaning. He came first which gave him an inch more headspace to feel Pete's race to the finish concluding. He hadn't finished the final throes of making a mess in his own jeans before he felt Pete leave his mouth and throw his head back, rutting and rubbing hard against him as he uttered and muttered. _

“_fuck... fuckfuck...oh fuck_

_Oh my god 'Trick... I'm gonna..._

_Shit... I... 'Trick... I fucking love you so much. I love you.”_

Patrick only needs to close his eyes and he is back there in a heartbeat. He remembers hearing those words like they're on a dusty cassette tape that he keeps in the bottom of a mental 'Me and Pete' shoebox time capsule. Every now and again he lets it play and gets all nostalgic. 'The night Pete loved me' is written in his inimitable scrawl along the side of the tape. Always set to play from the same point, tabs snapped out to stop anything being recorded over it. On loop some nights but normally stashed away from view. Just like being in a park in the middle of a dark, rainy summer night.

-

Somehow, it's twelve years later. One hundred and forty four months since one chaste kiss from a bad tribute act stripper. Things are so different and yet remaining very much the same. Patrick still hates Halloween.

Patrick has a wife and kids and even he's not sure how that happened but it did. Somehow he convinced someone both to marry him and that he was to be trusted with the terrifying fragility of raising tiny humans. Despite this he's convinced that his acting skills are woefully underrated but his agent keeps telling him to say that out loud less, especially when his wife is around. Apparently, and Patrick disagrees, it's not a compliment.

Pete has had a wife and she is no more. He now has someone who may as well be his wife but, as he repeats _ad nauseum_, a pre-nup is not much of an aphrodisiac. Patrick likes this one. She's kind and keeps Pete as sane as Pete can hope to get. She's forgiving of so many things that Pete's literal and acquired band of brothers and other ex-lovers would not have tolerated. It's been said that she should be commended to the Vatican for a beatification. Applications in this regard have not, to Patrick's knowledge, as yet been submitted but he knows he would co-sign it in an instant if Joe ever gets round to it.

The tour is over bar the flights home and there's a wrap party at the hotel. It's low key and, thankfully, not fancy dress. Life on the road lends itself less to those kinds of elaborate antics and he sets himself another mental reminder to always be on tour on Halloween. He remembers his solo show on the date he hates back in 2011 and even though it's a tainted memory for so many reasons he's still convinced that being on the road is where he's meant to be. Those devil horns are probably still in his Chicago storage unit. There's so many memories there that he'll finally face one day. Just not right now.

Patrick is ready to go home and get some decent sleep in his own bed. He wants his own coffee machine and his own thick fluffy towels and a decent deep dish pizza that he could maybe suffocate in if he fell into it face first. He wants to have some drinks. Just to have a good time and say goodbye. Not like a 2009 goodbye but adios for a decent long while. He's never out of new ideas but he can see that Joe is close to being done and he can't bear the thought of it being the end all over again. _It's not me, it's Joe_, he thinks. He's right. Andy knows it and never says it either. Pete's known it all along. Pete knows that he's no longer the loose wheel and Patrick agrees in their late night whatsapp chats but can never say it out loud. If you say it, it happens and the last thing he wants is for _that_ to happen. He's going full Wayne's World logic on this one, that's the only option. If it's meant to be then it'll be.

The gathering is already underway but he's just packing the last few things into his carry on when there's a knock at the door. No doubt Brian has a panic about guitar flight cases or maybe Andy has learned that the gym is closed for maintenance in the morning (they've all been careful not to let that slip all day for fear of a Crossfit induced outburst of rage. Truthfully Andy's style of rage is more a deep sigh but still.) and has come to let off some steam to the only person who can listen to him without eyerolling (externally at least). He looks through the spy hole and there's one of Pete's eyes then ears fisheyed in front of it.

“Hey, weirdo Wentz. Why are you listening at my door?”

The reply comes, entirely anticipated in it's unimpressed tone given the sarcastic greeting Patrick has just yelled through the door.

“Let me in you asshole.”

Patrick does as is requested, opening the door and then turning away to go back to his busywork of tidying the room. He hears the door click shut and there's several moments of silence before he turns around and sees Pete stood before him in a long hotel robe. That would be odd enough when they've got a party to get to but when he concentrates his squint he sees all.

It's not unusual for Pete to have straight hair but this is immaculately straightened hair. It's glossy and shiny (which means freshly washed or, by Pete's hair standards, washed this week at least) and curled under into an Uma Thurman style bob at the bottom. As Pete concentrates on unfastening the robe and shrugging it down from his shoulders the hair sways and swings around his face and Patrick is rapt.

Pete's face has a slick of glossy, inviting ruby red sparkling from his lips and his eyes are subtly lined and made (even more but he can't tell Pete that) beautiful by the swipe of a deep, classy burnt gold eyeshadow that sits the full width of his eyelids. It's maybe a little amateurish in it's application (for his sins Patrick notices things like that but has learned over time that it's unwelcome information that he needs to keep to himself) but the colour pops the swear-they're-there hints of verdigris green in Pete's eyes even from many feet away across the room. Every sinew in his body wants him to go and slam Pete against the door and ruin every part of the polished look, to run his hands through the silky hair and to give his own lips a hot pink halo of smeared lip gloss as he tastes Pete's mouth. But he doesn't. That's not what they do, it just takes a lot to remember that from time to time.

Pete finishes shrugging the robe off before Patrick has had a chance to think up a question to ask, let alone how to ask it. Underneath it is a blazer dress that sits wide across the inked skin exposing black straps that run from the defined shape of his shoulders to the top of a fancy bra that peeks out over the neckline of the dress. Only Pete could do such a wild and unasked for fancy dress in an actual fancy dress. Patrick's eyes go all the way down whether he wants them to or not and he follows the shape of Pete's narrow hips where the fabric clings and sees slender legs extending from the bottom of the suggestively short hemline. It's not the first time he's had the realisation that Pete is _dangerously fucking beautiful_.

The room tastes like something in his mouth, something nostalgic and yet forbidden. It's a just fever dream he tells himself, another one. He'll wake in a second panting and thrashing at sheets that have restrained him once too often and often too long, the imagined sensation of Pete rocking on top of him fading into the suffocating silence of the early hours. The room will be cool and empty and his alarm will be ringing or a hammering sound will be coming from an ignored hotel wake up call. That's what it is. He closes his eyes and waits, brow furrowing. He can make this dream stop. He does it all the time. _You have no power over me _he repeats like a golden mantra. It soothes him in the sometimes painful reveries of his waking hours so he can take it as a rescue remedy into his dreams too. Two drops on his tongue, two more times he repeats it. _You _(Jesus, Pete) _have no_ (so much... too much) _power over me_.

How the fuck he ended up with a kink that led to this apparition of Pete in his dreams without even realising is too hard to work through. Patrick reassures himself that his therapist will have some thoughts on this latest dream and will help him explain it away for what's probably the four hundredth time since he started seeing her three years ago. That is essentially what he's paid her for from the start. _Don't fix me, fix him. He's the problem here. He won't leave me alone. Yeah, he's in my band and we sometimes spend months of the year together where basically he's my every waking second but just make him stop. Is that too much to ask? Isn't that what I'm paying you for? _His head is spinning hard and Patrick feels like he's swaying. There's no soft mattress waiting to take his fall back to earth. He'll lose his balance soon if he doesn't do something. His eyes spring open.

It isn't a dream. Pete is still stood there albeit looking a little more sheepish as the seconds pass by. The party definitely isn't fancy dress. He's turned down every invitation to any that are since, well, _then_. The jeans and short sleeved shirt combo he's wearing (everyone has a reliable 'I didn't want to come in the first place' go-to outfit, don't they?) feels like it's slowly strangling the life out of him. Instinctively he reaches for the top button and tries to unbutton it but it wasn't done up that far in the first place. Patrick can't look away. Every detail makes him more punch drunk and he can't put the glass down. _Salt, shot, lime. Lick, sip, suck_. Doesn't want to. Won't. He's getting hard and floundering hard and Pete is staring shyly at his own bare feet, probably trying not to draw too much attention to the painted toenails that match the colour of his lips. _Fuck_. He has to say something, to do something. The words that stumble-tumble out of his mouth avoid the obvious.

“Hey, aren't you going to the drinks? Or are you going like... well... _that_?”

“Maybe and, um, no. I guess not.”

Suddenly Patrick's patience is running as thin as the single strand of cotton that's linking him to his sanity. Both are fraying under the pressure. Monotone and largely monosyllabic answers are just a sharpened blade pressing on his edges. He's fighting his urges hard and that's pushing him to all of his limits all at once.

“Pete... I mean, _what the_...”

The exasperation in his voice is palpable and he tries to avoid saying any other words until Pete can give him a better explanation. He doesn't have to wait long. There's a moment of silence and finally Pete looks up and straight at him.

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“Well, you sure as hell wanted to get my attention.”

Pete takes a step forward but Patrick puts his hand up to signal that he shouldn't come any closer. He doesn't know why but he needs to feel the force field of clear space around him. This isn't right. This is either a dream or a nightmare come to life and he can't quite decide which yet. He eyeballs the discarded robe on the floor and part of him wants to pick it up and put it round Pete's almost bare shoulders. The other part of him wants to push his face into it and see if it smells as good as Pete seems to. An air of heady, spicy and sweet perfume that he's odds on Pete has sprayed on his pulse points is drifting across the room and it's every bit as intoxicating as all the things his eyes can see.

“You want me to go?”

He has no right way answer to that. Yes is safer, no is true.

He doesn't say no. Pete doesn't leave.

“Pete, _this_... even for you this is fucked up.”

“Yeah, I know, kinda. Maybe. But still pretty cool, I mean, I look okay as a chick, right?”

Pete's voice is shaking as he barely babbles the words out. He's convincing them both or at least trying to.

“No, not cool. Not at all cool. Seriously not cool.”

The crestfallen face works its usual magic. Patrick immediately hates it and himself for being so cold. If he sounds cold then it's a lie. He doesn't mean a word of it. It's nothing to do with cool. He's hot. Pete's hot. It's all a cause for overheating. His spine is on fire. Shoulders to shins sparkling with a sheen of sweat. Cold is the last thing he is at heart.

“But yeah, you do look... pretty great. As a chick. Or as you. I mean, yeah. So, really good. Look, I just don't know why you're here _like that_. With me. Here. Now.”

It's crunch time and he knows Pete won't back down. Pete never backs down, he just doesn't always show up either.

“We're headed home and it just felt like the right time.”

Patrick knows what's coming. It can only be what his mind has already raced to and planted a flag in. He's waited for it for so long. He wants this and knows he wants it. He's always wanted it and to tell himself otherwise is a lie he can't keep pretending to believe. The 'Why now?' on the tip of his tongue is a question he parks until he knows that he's right. With that desert dry tongue feeling footlong in his mouth he forces the question out.

“The right time for what?”

“You and me.”

“Fuck. Now? I... wow. You're not even half kidding are you?”

“No. I wouldn't... not about this. Not about you.”

The laugh that spills out of Patrick's mouth is the least deliberate thing in the entire world when it ventures into it. It's giddy. Insincere. Desperate. His voice has gone, his mouth can't catch the signals still trying to ebb their way down the whisper thin cotton connection. Every nerve is jangling as he mentally reaches for the cassette tape and holds it in his hands. _Hit play. Just hit play. Say your part. Do something. Just tell him. He knows and you know he knows you know he knows so just tell him_.

“What's so funny 'Trick?”

Pete's crash from high class hooker at the door to crestfallen groupie in a suite she's no right to be in manifests itself in his face. It's painful to see. Patrick doesn't want to cause Pete pain, that's never been on the progress agenda that his therapist talks to him about all the time.

“Nothing. I promise. I just... what am I meant to say to you Pete?

“That you love me too?”

And there it is.

No escaping now. Well, Patrick knows he could leap out of an eleventh floor window but it seems an extreme way to escape the tension in the room. Truth is he doesn't want to escape. This has been coming for half of his lifetime. Somewhere under the ton of sand that has taken every drop of moisture out of his mouth is that exact phrase where it's always been. He does love Pete. He's always loved Pete. Down since day one. It's always been Pete. Every sunrise is coloured with thoughts of Pete, every sunset packs that love away from prying eyes and stows away a well hidden but thoroughly broken heart for another day. At night he can hide. At night there is a wall around him that means he doesn't have to think about it any more. At night he is free of who he has been for so many years in the silence of his own hotel rooms, in the crashing sound of his studio as another furious drum solo pounds back at him off the framed gold discs that line his dry wall and in the incessant make-it-stop hum of tour bus wheels under his back as Pete slept in a bunk above him on a thousand nights so close and yet so very far away.

“And what if I say it? What then?”

His words are softly spoken and his heart pauses every other beat to check he's still alive. The tables turn in that second and he watches as Pete's hands head for his face before, at the very last second, his sudden feminine sixth sense stops him short of spoiling the make up he clearly spent a lot of time on. Patrick can't help but let his mind drift to the thought of that make up running down ruined over the gold highlighted cheekbones. If anybody loved drama at one point in life it was Pete but not now. Everything is different. A shake of the dipped head disturbs the immaculately coiffured hair in a swaying swelling wave. The desperation and exasperation is gone. What he can never know is that just one look at him has been enough to do that for Pete for years and that Andy and Joe had a far better view of it when Pete was pressed into the shape of his spine on stage but never said a word either.

“I don't know Patrick. Anything. Just say it – but only if you mean it - and then … I don't know, maybe we get on your bed and make out and I can get out of this ridiculous dress?”

“Pete, I-. This isn't a great time for a bad joke, okay?”

Instinctively Patrick's hand goes to the back of his neck and grips firmly. His sigh is audible in the next state, he's sure of it. It doesn't go unnoticed. Pete's tone was an out. A rip cord back to who they were before he knocked at that door. He sees Pete going back to shifting from foot to foot, a shrug nearly drops the dress from his shoulders. It seems like a bad time to talk about deportment lessons if he's planning on dressing up again.

“Man, you used to be way more fun than this.”

“I also used to be less married than this. You... you know that.”

_Fuck_, thinks Patrick, _that's not what I meant to say_. He means it and it's the truest thing in the room in that heartbeat but it's not a thought for public consumption and certainly not for Pete to hear. He's heard the phrase platinum and band in many combinations over the years and the main one he worries about is the one on his finger but he keeps that to himself. Pete seems to let it slide and Patrick knows that he'll think it's fair comment even if it's not the answer he was hoping for.

“Yeah, I know a lot of things. I remember them all too. I remember that night. I don't think they have a swing set or slide at this hotel but you never know.”

Pete isn't letting anything go. Patrick's heart is trilling against his ribcage.

“Don't. Don't fucking go there. Not now, not at all. C'mon Pete, you _promised_.”

“You made me. You made yourself promise.”

“I don't care. That's a long time ago. A fucking lifetime ago. Marriages, kids, life, gigs, albums... _the fucking hiatus_ ago...”

This time Pete is moving and Patrick isn't. He's powerless. Every sinew is taut and tightening. The scent in the air is enough to make the fine hairs on his arms stand on end. The gap is closing. All those years are swirling around his feet like leaves. He can't step out of them and all he wants to do is click his heels and be back in the morning after the night under that slide. No false promises. No saying it meant nothing when it meant everything. So many half hearted words that neither of them meant. They're scarred into his soul. He's carried them for what feels like an eternity. Faraway, so close.

“Can you say it?”

A hand cups the side of his face. It's warm and feels so good. A thumb swipes across his cheekbone (his skin is too damp for it to be movie scene perfect but in the literal heat of the moment Patrick knows he'll take a dose of cinematographic with a side order of 'What the hell is going on?', thanks).

“I can.”

“So say it.”

Part of him wishes that Pete wasn't dressed so out there. He looks amazing and Patrick knows he could drag him onto the bed and ruin every perfect part of the charade. He could rip that dress open and throw it onto the floor, (hopefully) impress by snapping the bra open with one deft hand and mouth at Pete through the lacy underwear that he's sure forms the other half of the set to match the bra. The swathe of midnight hair would wrap fluidly around his fingers as Pete grinned up at him, eyes rolling back as the back of his throat got tested for it's tolerance. _Stop it Patrick. Stop it. Just... don't. That's not this. Not now. Oh God, but what if it might be..._

Part of him wants his Pete though. Pete in the washed out band tee with a pair of way too tight jeans on. Pete with his hair scraped back in a rough bun with days of stubble grown too long and a little grey on his chin. Pete who looks at him with a fire in his eyes, day in and day out, that's scorched the sides of his soul for what feels like all of his life. This Pete is strange and unfamiliar in so many ways but his heart knows that it's not a bad thing. The best dressed catalyst is before him, only inches away, and they're touching like they haven't in forever.

On the flip side of the flip side, there's something alluring about the way the dress and make up is making Pete move. Everything is gentler than usual. Gone is the agile soccer player who spins a bass around his neck like it's a hula hoop. Patrick sees the defined and gently muscular curve of Pete's shoulders and sees exactly how the dress is staying up. Underneath the split collar that hangs from the slender frame is the bra strap that Pete really doesn't need to show to get Patrick's blood pumping. It helps though. The rough, raw and dirty edge that Pete shows to everybody and their mother makes him alluring in a way that good girls and better boys aren't but that's obviously not on the menu tonight.

Autopilot says touch the skin, _touch and feel the warmth of soft olive skin_. His head says no but his heart has been on autopilot for so long when it comes to Pete that he can't help but reach out. His hands rest on the bare shoulders and inch towards the lace straps, sliding them off as they're already loose and ready for indecent descent. Pete's eyes close and Patrick's heart stops hard in his chest before kicking in again. The gold makes Pete's skin look darker, the plump pouted points of his lips are pressed together in a soft way that manages to make them even more inviting. In his heart his fate is sealed and Patrick knows it. It's not new news. It's always been this way only now his resolve is washing away like sand clinging onto the retreating tide.

“Always. It was always you. I've always, always loved you.”

His hand finds the roughsoft hair and his fingers act like a comb, pushing it back from Pete's face. This time he does close his eyes and trusts himself to bridge the inches as he leans forward and meets sweet sticky lips with a chaste press that can barely be called a kiss. The seconds pass but he doesn't pull away and, much to his relief, nether does Pete. Tentative. That's the word he would use to describe his attempt. He's trying to coax Pete into taking the lead but no dice. It's not happening. He doesn't have anything to prove. Pete dressed and made the move. Showed the intent, kickstarted the dealing of the cards on the table. Pete wants him, and yes, he wants Pete. Jesus does he want Pete. It's the most simple complex equation he's ever solved.

Attempt number two. The sugary slick he tastes when he licks his lips becomes the only thing he's ever been addicted to other than Red Vines. Pete on his lips again. Worth the wait? Absolutely. This time he's firmer. Even without any height advantage he feels ten feet tall. Pete's hands slide around his waist but go up his back, palms flat. He's not getting out of this kiss alive if he dares to try and leave it which is the last thing on his mind. He's urged on and spurred on by the way Pete's hips come flush to his own, aware of every bone and muscle as it pushes against the fabric of the dress and through it, sparking sharp and bright like a lightning conductor as if the clothes between them didn't exist.

By the time the kiss is over Patrick isn't sure if it's even still the same day. It's disorientating and his head is wrecked. Pete's hands have moved and they're pressed into the small of his back, Pete's head now rested on his shoulder, warm breaths brushing just below Patrick's ear. It's as if he's waiting for something - music or movement or miracles - and it's almost too much. Patrick knows there's no way back and he doesn't want there to be but he doesn't know where forward takes them either.

“'Trick?”

“Yeah.”

“I have the stockings in my robe pocket if you... y'know... if you want me to put them on.”

As if was physically possible since they became an odd combination of whatever they are Patrick pulls him closer, not sure how his arms and hands got where they are around Pete but not moving them a millimetre either. The thought of watching Pete slide the stockings onto and up his legs and then chasing with his own hands to touch the top of them under the hem of the dress is not helpful to the painful throbbing in his jeans. Sure it's helping it to throb harder as more blood rushes to try and join all the rest of his blood that's already seemingly gathered there (thanks for the effort but still, _no thanks_ he thinks) but that's not the sensation he needs down there if he's going to keep his cool.

“Not right now as we've _really _gotta go and do the social thing but you're coming back with me later right?”

Soft lips find his soft neck. Soft kisses find a soft spot. Soft hair tickles his soft fingertips as he cups the back of Pete's head. He really doesn't want to go anywhere but to bed.

“Try and stop me.”

“You wanna meet me back here in ten minutes and we'll go?”

“Just give me the shorts and t-shirt you sleep in. They'll do.”

“But what about the makeup Pete? And the perfume?”

“You worry too much. Besides you've got more lip gloss on now than I have.”

Patrick smiles and licks his lips. It won't be his colour but it's definitely his flavour. So many new things appear to be to his liking and when Pete rolls his hips there's something else that he finds out he likes. Autopilot kicks in again. A hand leaves Pete's back and slides down, dipping under the tight fitting skirt part of the dress and he grabs a handful of firm, smooth butt cheek pressing them together even more closely. Pete's groan is beyond sinful. Satan can't rustle up a noise like that. It's a sound that speaks of years of want and need, of desire that has no name and unashamed lust enrobed in love.

Teeth are snagging at his skin, tugs and bites that make his shaft twitch even though there is nowhere for it to go. For a second he imagines the same sensation on his tender nipples and hopes that eventually Pete might indulge his low level fetish for having his nipples sucked until they're so spit slicked and sensitive that he can't bear it. He's fairly sure that the stitching of his boxers will be imprinted on his swollen head forever if he doesn't take them off or get some sort of relief soon. It turns out that having his hand full of warm flesh and breathy wet sharp kisses on his neck is not the relief he's looking for.

“We gotta... Pete...”

“It's early 'Trick. They won't miss us yet.”

“It's late. They will. Brian wanted...”

“I kinda don't care about the party. There's more important things to do. Like you. Or me. Or both of us.”

“But, we said...”

His last word drops into the heavy silence of the room and he has no more sounds. Not one. Not a breath, not a sigh, not a thing. In the midst of his worry and protestations Pete has popped the button on his jeans and eased the fly down. Slender fingers are fighting their way between the cotton and the denim.

“You're not... I... fuck, there's a _lot_ going on down here Patrick.”

“Yeah... a lot.”

He's past putting thoughts together. Coherence means nothing. If asked he has no idea what he's just said. It could have been Pete's Starbucks order or the first line of Star Wars for all he knows. Words desert his every brain cell, maybe because they're starved of the blood that his body has redirected elsewhere, maybe because the oxygen he should be inhaling doesn't seem to be making it into his lungs as his breath hitches or maybe it's just the fingertips touching him gently through his boxers.

“You can't go anywhere like this. You won't even be able to walk.”

“I'm going nowhere if you keep touching me like that.”

Lips find his jaw and then his cheek and then his lips. Warm, wet lips. Warm, wet kiss. Fingertips. Sensations flood his blood starved brain. His hand leaves Pete's hair and finds a way between them, slightly parted as they are since Pete went to work on him. Through the stretched dress he cups as much of Pete's cock as he can as it bulges obscenely through the snug material. His timing mirrors the way he's still massaging the handful of flesh in his other hand. Pete's right. They can't go anywhere. He can't concentrate on polite conversation with lighting guys while sporting a hard on that could be classed as a risk to his health. Pete is the first and only guy he's ever made out with and it's just like it is with girls only hotter. Better. More intense. More Pete. More, more, _please god_ just _more_.

“Come get on the bed with me Pete?”

The question is clear. It should be a statement and he knows that. He should be brash and forthright but now is not the time. That isn't what he is and certainly not to Pete, even in a dress and lingerie. It has to be mutual. It's their need, not his. It has to be their shared desire to break each other through the night, not just his. He's never been a good signal reader and in the morning he'll look back and realise that when Pete ventured into his room as he did there was never any question as to what he wanted. Maybe, Patrick will think, he had one last doubt of his own that only Pete's agreement would allay.

“Fuck, yes.”

Crossing the short distance they entangle and detangle like a free flowing Keith Haring piece. Lines and dots and arms and legs on a continuum that form a shape like lost time, repressed desire and ties that had bound too tightly and not tightly enough at the same time. The backs of Patrick's legs hit the bed and he stops for a moment, chest rising and falling hard, Pete pulls away just long enough to shrug the dress from his shoulders and pushes it down from where it catches at the crook of his elbow until it's on the floor at his feet. There's no dramatic kicking it away as if it's a bad strip show. Instead Patrick watches as it's retrieved and folded in half before being placed on the night stand. For a moment it takes his mind from what's in front of him but not for long. Oh, not for long.

The lingerie fits almost too well but then Pete has always been slender and shapely at the same time. The hints of gold in amongst the black catch in the cast of the bedside light and the ethereal glow just makes Pete more beautiful, more appealing. Unable to resist, Patrick reaches out and traces the top curve of the bra cups, letting his finger wander down until it's circling Pete's navel but he stops short of the lacy knickers.

“You okay Patrick?”

He doesn't miss the concerned tone in Pete's voice but he's okay. He's fine. He's as fine as he's ever been. It's just... a lot. It's hard to choke down questions and concentrate on now but he's going to do it. He does it. It's the most important choice he's ever made.

“Better. Let's... y'know.”

With no further discussion he shuffles onto the bed and then slides over, patting the space beside him in a cheesy fashion he'll regret when he remembers it, inviting Pete to join him as if he wants to talk to him about the birds and the bees. Or the bees and the bees so it turns out. He doesn't expect it when Pete lays beside him on his back and tilts his head, so obviously waiting to be kissed that Patrick can't do anything but oblige.

“Touch me, y'know, when you're ready. And only if you want to.”

It's less want and more need. Need with a capital 'I've waited a lifetime for this'. Need with a sense of urgency that the underwear is driving him crazy and he can see the shape and size of Pete's cock as it pushes at the lace. Another first. He knows how to handle his own and so Pete's can't be so different, can it? He's seen a few in passing but never gone this far. His hand starts as far down Pete's right thigh as it can, trying not to tremble as it makes its way over perfectly smooth, soft skin. His fingers catch the inside of both thighs at the same time and it's a blessed moment as he sees the thighs parting for him, the movement making the bulge bounce and his skin tingle.

Slowly he traces his fingertips up over the distorted lace, not applying any pressure at all. The soft fabric is gossamer thin and he knows with the sounds he can hear that Pete is feeling every movement. He feels his own cock twitch hard when he runs his fingers to the very top of Pete's and finds a wet patch that dampens the pads of his index and middle fingers, stroking in circles as he struggles to breathe.

“Can I?”

“Anything. Just do... do anything...”

Very deliberately Patrick slides his fingers under the side of the lace and pushes the surprisingly stretchy fabric aside, exposing Pete just enough to set him free, gathering the warm flesh carefully into the palm of his hand and curling his fingers around the impressive shaft. He flexes his grip and resettles his hand, mind blown as Pete tilts his hips up and groans quietly. He starts to slide his hand up and down, trying his best to think about what Pete might want, how he does it, what he's seen on film... anything to make it good for Pete.

Being someone well versed in the art of self pleasure, Patrick has every expectation that he can get something going that will get Pete there but it's like he wants more than that. Not naïve enough to expect some grand moment of shared orgasm (none of his firsts have ever begun or ended that perfectly, not even with himself) but wanting it to be right. To be good. To be them. Shuffling closer he takes a moment to drink in what he can see on Pete's face, surrounded as it is by the dark hair as it drapes round to the back of his neck like a oil spill on the pillow. Every small ministration gets a groan, sigh or lip bite. He's not the torturous kind but he wants to watch this on loop forever. Much as he knows how he likes it (fast, rough and aimed back at his own chest) even if Pete does like it the same he doesn't want it to be over so soon.

Propped up on one arm beside Pete is pretty much where he wants to be for the rest of his life. His hand is moving faster though, he can't help it. He needs Pete to come as much as Pete needs it. The slight taptaptap sound is only audible over his own heavy breathing and Pete's desperate noises.

“Don't stop... please...”

“I won't, I promise.”

“You're so good... feels so good Patrick. Please don't stop, don't... don't stop.”

Unable to help himself he leans down and kisses Pete harder than before, trying as much to swallow the moans and feel them vibrating in his own throat before they die down. Pete responds by kissing back with the same energy and they're devouring each other. First meal becomes last meal. Rare treat becomes main course.

For all he knows his hand could be breaking the sound barrier or may have come off altogether. The feel of Pete's tongue tasting his mouth, Pete's teeth grazing his lip and the sound of Pete's broken pleas has tipped reality on it's side. There's nothing normal left. Everything has shifted, tilted, changed. It's not until he feels a hand cover his and still it that he realises it's happening. Pete has stiffened head to toe and he feels the muttering of indecipherable sounds and words against his lips. Suddenly Pete's mouth gapes open millimetres from his own and he kisses the side of it gently, feeling the pulsing against his palm as the orgasm starts and Patrick doesn't let go until Pete is spent and limp beneath him. A quick glimpse down and he sees the mess Pete has made of himself. It's glorious. It's dirty and raw and honest and what he wanted. What he's always wanted. Where he's always meant to have been. More gentle kisses. More thigh stroking. More silent agreement. Patrick is happy. Pete seems to be.

“Wow.”

“Yeah?”

“You... okay?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Wow.”

“Pete, that is not an answer.”

“It is. Bite me.”

In the midst of his incredulous head shaking and laughter Patrick doesn't realise that Pete is moving. It's only when he realises that he's on his back and the weight of Pete straddling his upper thighs registers that he looks up and sees Pete looking down at him lustfully.

“I thought you'd be tired.”

“I am a little but I've got to return the favour.”

“Pete, that's not how-”

“Shh.”

Patrick, for once in all their relationship years, concedes defeat easily and does as he's told. Pete is quick to tug his jeans fully open and down as far as his presence will allow, urging Patrick with his eyes and hands to lift his hips while his boxers and jeans are dragged down just far enough to let his leaking, aching, lonely cock come to rest against the soft shape of his lower belly, brushing against the downy rose gold hair that sits there. He watches intently as Pete's deft (for a bass player) fingers go to work on his shirt buttons bottom to top and then part the cotton until it's pushed down to his sides. Hands find his collar bones and trace downwards, catching his sensitive nipples enough to make him let out a low, appreciative sound. He clocks Pete's raised eyebrow and small smile. Patrick is, yet again, reminded that there's a reason he's never played poker for money.

The fingers stroke his sides and whilst he knows he'll never be a ripped Adonis, Patrick finds that he is more at home than ever in his own skin now it's Pete that's exposing and so tenderly appreciating him. He doesn't flinch when the pads move towards his well padded navel, nor when Pete pushes his hands all the way back up, again tormenting his nipples for the most fleeting of moments, and then leans down to kiss him. He's complete in the moment and completed by Pete. If only he had known how to be brave enough to fill that gap in his life so long ago.

“If you wanna I'd-”

“Yes.”

No other words are needed. He knows that, they both know that. He's said yes in more than words already but there can be no ambiguity now. The soft, long hair tickles Patrick's face and he moves a hand to tuck it behind Pete's ear. Instinctively he reaches round with his other hand and unclips the bra (quietly proud that he's still got it as it was a hard earned skill with so few partners to practice on) before using both hands to slide the slipped straps down Pete's arms. Thankfully he takes the cue and slips them off each arm one by one before Patrick throws it to the floor.

“You never needed that to get my attention. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, maybe. I do now.”

“But if you wanna try it on again for me, like, some other time...”

“Deal.”

There are kisses and then there are _kisses_. Patrick thinks to himself that this is definitely a _kiss_. His hands are on Pete's slim hips and he feels the soft lace rubbing against the very top of his thighs, his taut balls and the very base of his cock as Pete rocks against him, tongue thick and deep his mouth - the dictionary definition of plundering. He's not passive in the kiss by any means but feeling explored – _devoured _even – means that he doesn't want to derail proceedings by making any kind of move, let alone a false one. Pressing up against Pete gives him a miniscule amount of extra pressure but it feels good. Everything about Pete always has. Always does. Always will.

One hand leaves one of his shoulders. One hand pushes into the barely there gap between them. Four fingers curl just under his balls and they squeeze, massage and rub and rub and _rub_. He can feel the wet swipe of himself leaking against his belly and much as he wants the fingers to carry on he needs them elsewhere. The inadvertent air of frustration to his grumbled groan earns him a laugh from Pete who more than capably interprets the newest facet to their own individual brand of cryptophasia.

“Impatient. I kinda like it.”

Patrick doesn't get a chance to reply. His brain goes into meltdown as soon as the fingers grip him tightly and the hand starts to pump at him. _Not yet. Not yet don't... fuck Patrick, don't come yet_. In time Pete will go on to tell him that If there was a playback available he could get a screen actors guild award for best soundtrack. Low register rumbles can only mean high octave orgasm approaching. His thighs want to spread and squeeze at the same time. His mouth wants more but can't possibly take more, his lips flushed pink by more than make up and as glossy as any catwalk model. Pete is ferocious and it's turning him on like nothing ever before. It's primal and natural in a way that sex has never been in the past. Bodies that just fit, hands that just know. Minds that met a lifetime ago but have only just found their true flow.

His toes curl hard but he doesn't feel the socks that he still has on or the way his heels fight the cotton sheets for purchase. What he does feel is Pete's hips rolling against him and he has the sensation of what it must be liked to be fucked by Pete for the second time in his life. It's electric and, if he's honest, was instantly addictive all those years ago. _How did we not do this for so long?_ he thinks, knowing that at least it won't be another sixteen years before he finds out again.

_...My Aim Is True. 1977. This Year's Model 1978. Shit... oh shit, that feels good.. Armed Forces. 1979. Or was it 1980? No, Get Happy was 1980. Trust and Almost Blue were 1981. This is not working. Oh man, come on Patrick, hang in there. Long division. Yeah, try that... oh... oh...._

Patrick's eyes go from screwed shut in committed determination to more open that they've ever been in less than half a heartbeat. It's pointless trying to hang on. He's so far gone. Too far gone. Pete's hands are touching so much more than flesh. _Hit play. Play the tape._ _Tonight Pete loves you and you love him. Play it at 11. Play it on repeat. _

He hasn't noticed they're not kissing any more. All he sees is Pete looking down at him, eyes narrowed but seeing all. The desire etched in every line on his face and in every tiny velveteen crease on that plump, kiss bruised bottom lip. Connection. That's all he's ever needed.

In a hard dip of his hips against the forgiving mattress Patrick is done. His body betrays him and what he's been feeling in the best possible way. He swings the bat and hits for home. The pressure as he comes builds from the tip of his toes and goes off like a depth charge as it gets to his groin. The plentiful wet splashes land on his skin and start to run down into the curves and dips of his chest. He doesn't care how it looks. He knows that Pete sure as hell doesn't care either. The hand relents but still works him, the last drops being urged from him and trickling down over his opaquely shiny tip and onto Pete's fingers. His own _taptaptap_ is stickier sounding now and the way Pete stares wantonly at him as he continues his gentle coaxing feels like it could be enough to get him hard to go again in little more than minutes.

Eventually Pete lets go and Patrick can't quite catch his breath as he sees Pete bring his hand to his mouth and lick the sticky off the side of his index and middle fingers as if it's the most natural thing in the world to do. He's caught even more off guard when he finds the tongue in charge of the clean up job urging it's way into his mouth again. His final surprise is that it doesn't really taste of much (which is almost disappointing. He wasn't hoping for delicious but _something _would have been nice) but it's yet another first to tick off a list he's never quite had the courage to make.

“You okay down there?”

“Mmm.”

“'Trick, we're not going to the party.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Cool. Room service?”

“Later.”

He eyes Pete's smirk suspiciously but there's nothing there other than mischief. Lust may be in the mix too, the smile and the eye shadow somehow make it hard to tell when Pete's face is so close to his.

“I must be good if you're turning down food for me.”

“Pete, I never said I was turning it down. I'm just putting you first.”

If there's ever a time it's useful to have an Adam's apple Patrick realises he values it most in the moment after his stomach drops. A hard gulp. A sudden swallowing of saliva but also of a cascade of words that he knows he doesn't need to say for them to be heard. He's said fifty words in just five. He means the words in every way possible. Everything outside the four walls can wait. Life is on hold while he makes right a lifetime of longing. Pete is snuggling against him, pushing his face into the warmth at the side of his neck again, fitting perfectly. Neither of them cares about the mess they've made of each other and the bed, just the moment. Everything is changing and what should feel risky just feels right.

“How long do you need, like, y'know?”

“Half an hour? Less for you. I don't know. I'm not as old as you are.”

A playful swat follows and Patrick laughs. It's got a nervous quality to it that he tries his best to hide but it's all feeling so far so good. So far and so very good.

“Come shower with me. I can get you back up and running in ten or your money back.”

The slightly cocky tone in Pete's is as presumptuous as Patrick knows it deserves to be. He's grateful to hear it, to even have the chance to hear it. He wants to hear it again and again, even when that voice is just brokenly whispering his name right through until tomorrow when he has to face some serious music. In more ways that one he has the world in the palm of his hand. He's already had it there and it felt better than he could ever have imagined. He watches as Pete climbs over and off his legs, moving to curl up alongside him, one leg slung over Patrick's hip as if laying together like that is the most natural and normal thing in the world. (Pete's spider monkey clinginess means the position is nothing new. The dynamic and state of undress however, is.). He can't help but glance down as he curls his arm around Pete's shoulder, noting the curve of the perfectly shaped backside still fighting to stay inside the constraints of the expensive lace.

“Ten minutes?”

“Sure.”

“I think I can nap my way back into the game, trust me.”

He feels the smile against his skin way before he registers the gentle laughter. Pete stays close and, without moving, feels even closer. Everything is about feeling. That's all there is. There's nothing and nowhere else in the world for him – for them - to be.

Patrick doesn't find any revelations in the pattern of the ceiling's plasterwork in the minutes before his eyes close. He's sure that there's going to be a moment when reality hits and every good idea they've just had seems like a bad one but it's not yet so he'll take it. The cold light of day is an old adversary that has pulled that trick on him plenty of times before. In the moment Patrick is happy to risk everything. He's worth it. A shot at happiness is worth it. Pete is even more worth it. He's been risking everything for years silently but later, when he's laid on his front, legs spread as an insistent tongue flicks and feathers in a place he can no longer call innocent, he won't be silent any more. When he feels the warm wet magic of Pete's mouth for the first time he will muffle his moans with something suitable from the pillow menu. It turns out that his entire life was dedicated to sound but lived in silence. It's time to turn the volume up. Time to make it loud.

**Author's Note:**

> So, some points of reference:
> 
> [Pete's highlighted hair](https://data.whicdn.com/images/246700204/original.jpg)
> 
> [In a video for the 2007 Honda Civic tour that FOB were on, Patrick makes a comment that Christina Aguilera is one of his guilty pleasures.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d807iKHLi24)
> 
> [The video for Christina Aguilera's Dirrty is a point of reference for Pete's show at the party - esp timestamped from 1:43 onwards](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Rg3sAb8Id8)
> 
> [This is an outfit Christina wore in 2018 which inspired Pete's outfit although his was obviously shorter and styled to be a lot more revealing](http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/LQF4D2kVZGR/2018+Billboard+Music+Awards+Red+Carpet/aDutythfWyu)
> 
> The title is a reference to Laid by James. 
> 
> Thanks for reading :) All reads, kudos and reviews are much appreciated :)


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